Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 both weigh the player down with encumbrance. Love it or hate it, it seems like it’s here to stay.
I prefer no inventory or encumbrance but just collections. Perm objects once you collect you have it forever and if you get a new one it just auto converts to coins or whatnot and consumables you get a number in the collections and if it is 0 then you can’t use it. Sure its not realistic that a character can carry tons of crap but they stick in magic chests or unlimited space motorcycle trunks or whatever anyway. Just pretend your character is only carrying the equiped items and every thing else is in the magic mcguffin that allows you to essentially carry around a bunch of crap but take the inventory management aspect out. I play to have fantasy and have fun. Not organize crap. I have to organize crap (or at least should) in real life.
I have never wished for encumbrance in a game that didn’t have it. I’ve only ever wished it was gone from those that do.
James Stephany Sterling
I’m a hoarder in these games. If I can store all my stuff back at my base like in Fallout 4 and Skyrim then I’m happy. As long as they don’t pull the Fallout 76 stunt where you need to pay monthly for extra storage.
While I do think encumbrance in a Bethesda game is pretty pointless I do believe it serves a purpose in BG3. Barrels full of all sorts of liquids are extremely useful, their drawback is that they weigh a ton. Encumbrance exists to prevent you from being a barrelmancer. I think you can also pick up any chests, so you can just carry away all the chests you can’t unlock and then break them somewhere safe (or move them to you lockpicking character etc).
One of my questions on Starfield - can I roleplay as a hoarder, picking up every possible piece of junk - cups, pencils, etc - and store it all in a couple of cabinets or containers as some kind of infinitely huge repo?
…because I swear to god, for whatever reason that seems to be my favorite part of Skyrim and Fallout 3 for whatever reason.
If that mechanic isn’t in Starfield then I lose like half my motivation to play :)
Based on what I was reading last night, there’s a chest in The Lodge basement that has unlimited storage space. The trick is, you just have to be able to get your stuff there.
